The Real Cost of Owning a Static Caravan in 2026 (What the Sales Cabin Won't Tell You)

Every weekend, all over the country, somebody sits in a sales cabin on a holiday park being told that a static caravan is an investment in family memories. The coffee is good, the show van is lovely, and the monthly figure on the sheet looks manageable.

Most of what they're told is true. It's what they're not told that costs people tens of thousands of pounds.

I've spent a long time in the owners' groups reading what people wish they'd known before they signed. This is that list, with the actual numbers. Read it before you view a park, not after.

You have less legal protection than you think

Start with the one almost nobody knows. A holiday static caravan is not covered by the Mobile Homes Act. That law protects people living in residential park homes, and it gives them rights over pitch fee rises, site rules and eviction, plus a tribunal to appeal to.

None of that applies to a holiday caravan. There is no tribunal for you. There is no ombudsman for the sector. The government has confirmed holiday caravan owners are covered by ordinary consumer law instead, and has no plans to change that.

So your protection comes down to two things: consumer law, and whatever is written in your licence agreement. Which makes that agreement the most important document you'll read all year, and most buyers never read past the price.

Site fees have no cap and no appeal

At most parks the annual site fee runs somewhere between £3,500 and £5,400, and at plenty it's more. It goes up most years, there's no statutory cap on the increase, and there's nowhere to appeal it.

The rises can be brutal. In one case documented by the Holiday Park Action Group, an owner's fee went from £2,795 in 2022 to £4,100 in 2024. That's over 46% in two years, and the only options were pay it or leave.

When you're working out whether you can afford a static, the purchase price is the smaller half of the question. The fee, compounding every year for as long as you own it, is the bigger half.

The age limit is counted from the year the van was built, not the year you bought it

This is the trap that catches second hand buyers. Most parks have an age limit, the point at which a caravan is no longer allowed to stay on the pitch. Haven parks typically run 10 to 15 years, Parkdean generally 12 to 20, Away Resorts 15 to 20, and independents anywhere from 10 to 25 or more.

The limit is counted from the year of manufacture. So that bargain eight year old van on a park with a 12 year limit isn't a bargain at all. It has four summers left before a letter arrives, and at that point your choices are usually to buy a new van from the park, move it at your own cost if you even can, or sell it off the pitch for a fraction of what you paid.

What's left when the age limit letter wins: the pitch, the hook-ups, and the shape of where the van sat.

Parks are relaxed about this because the age limit feeds the upgrade cycle, and the upgrade cycle is where they make their margin.

Depreciation is faster than a car

A static loses value at roughly 15% a year, and the steepest drop comes straight after you buy, partly because a chunk of what you paid was park margin and add-ons you never get back.

The extreme end of this is well documented. In the same HPAG case above, a caravan bought for £29,995 in 2022 was reckoned to be worth around £5,000 on the open market barely two years later. Not every van falls that hard, but every van falls, and the sales cabin will never put a depreciation curve in front of you.

You can sell it privately, whatever you're told

When a park sells a caravan on your behalf, it typically charges between 10% and 30% commission. On a £15,000 van that's £1,500 to £4,500, sometimes with advertising and processing fees on top.

Here's the part worth remembering. The caravan is your property. The park cannot stop you selling it privately or to a trader, and commission is only payable if the park arranges the sale. Some parks imply otherwise. Check what your agreement actually says about off-park sales and disconnection charges, but don't accept "you have to sell through us" at face value.

This is why the single most useful habit in the whole process is getting things in writing before you sign. Not because parks are all villains, most aren't, but because the ones that are rely on nothing being written down.

The letting income is never the brochure figure

If you're being sold on renting it out to cover the fees, do the maths on the net figure, not the "earn up to" one. Some parks charge a flat £200 to £500 a year for permission to sublet, others take 5 to 15% of the income, and park-run letting services charge 20 to 30% commission. Then there's cleaning, gas safety certification, platform fees and wear.

The tax position changed too. The Furnished Holiday Lettings regime was abolished from April 2025, so the older, friendlier tax treatment people talk about in the groups no longer exists.

You cannot live in it, and the park can close

The worst outcomes in this sector nearly all start with someone being allowed to believe a holiday caravan can be their home. It can't. The site's planning permission is for holiday use, and the government has acknowledged that holiday caravans are sometimes mis-sold as permanent residences.

Park closure is real as well, not a hypothetical. Owners at one Welsh park were given roughly six weeks' notice that the site was shutting, with one owner losing around £30,000. Your licence agreement, again, is what decides where you stand.

Sometimes it genuinely is a good buy

None of this means don't do it. Somebody who has holidayed at the same park for fifteen years, will use the van sixty or eighty nights a season, pays cash, and treats it as a lifestyle purchase rather than an asset, is usually doing just fine. Plenty of owners wouldn't swap it for anything.

The difference between the happy owners and the ones in the Facebook groups at midnight is that the happy ones knew the numbers before they signed.

Work out your own ten year number

Before you sign anything, you want one figure: what this will actually cost you over ten years, and what you'll have at the end of it. Purchase price, site fees with a realistic annual increase, insurance, gas and electric, servicing, minus what the van will realistically fetch when the age limit forces a decision. Then divide by the nights you'll honestly use it. For a lot of buyers that number lands somewhere between £150 and £250 a night, and it's better to know that in the cabin than three years later.

I've put everything above, and a lot more, into a kit built for exactly this decision.

Or take the free version: ask the park for the age limit policy, the last five years of site fee increases, and the resale commission, all in writing, before you sign anything. How they react will tell you plenty.

This article is information, not legal or financial advice. Your own licence agreement always governs.